


holding onto all those chandeliers of hope

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [14]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas, Eating Disorders, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21852772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Christmastime comes around, and Roman isn't dead.At least Thomas is creating again.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Joan Stokes & Thomas Sanders
Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1453462
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30
Collections: anonymous





	holding onto all those chandeliers of hope

**Author's Note:**

> if i have fucked up the they/thems, please execute me. i am also a they/them
> 
> hfghdhs i don't Like this but it needs to be written to go up for the sudden drop
> 
> content warnings: the usual ones. discussion of restricted eating and calories. implications that things are Not As They Seem bc i'm an idiot who is half-asleep and stressed and venting and is very annoyed at their level of bedroom orderliness and (i'm getting to the part that i meant to get to at the start) who chose to make this series multiple-pov with no reliable narrators. implied lack of executive functioning due to brainfuckery, and also the implication that it's only resolved due to typical sides urban fantasy fuckery. discussion of a previous suicide attempt and a fake person being created to manipulate other sides into believing that everything's okay to lull them into a false sense of security in order to get some peace and quiet to murder-suicide your centre

It would probably be a good idea to tidy the place up.

Thomas sits on Creativity’s lap, smiling and leaning back into their forked neck every so often. With wet suckling sounds, the left head gnaws on Thomas’s left ear, while the right hand ghosts over Thomas’s own, clutched around a pencil, and tracing out words for skits, and stories, and songs.

Hope swings his feet forwards and backwards, perched on the countertop between the kitchen and the living room. Virgil can’t really fault him for that, since it’s one of his favourite places to sit, too, but it’s also the only remaining seat in the room.

The sofa is covered in mail of varying importance, both in and out of their envelopes, but mostly torn-up pages of notebook paper. Apple cores in varying shades of yellow-brown leave soaked stains in the fabric of cushions and such.

“It looks like shit in here,” says Virgil, shifting the laundry on his usual stair in order to sit here.

Hope looks up and beams, with his the rhythm of his feet thudding against the wall picking up in speed. “Virgil!”

At that, Thomas and the right head, which Virgil would probably guess is Roman, look up with identical wide eyes and drawn lips.

Thomas breaks out into a smile. “Hi, Virgil! Roman and I were just working on some ideas for a few short videos before Talyn and Joan come over.”

Virgil feels his spine straighten up, like he’s just been given ECT or whatever the lady got in that musical bootleg Thomas was watching last night. His brows furrow, and he asks, “What?”

“Talyn and Joan are coming over,” smiles the head that is definitely Roman. “We’re going to eat a meal, and we’re going to go over some of my ideas, and some of Joan’s, and Talyn is going to provide valuable insight towards both of us, and then we’re all going to watch a movie or something.”

His voice sounds just the same as it did before the bathroom disaster; before he became monochrome and monotone, existing only to fulfil a literal dying dream that Virgil was opposed to with every fibre of his being.

“We’re staying in, right?” asks Virgil. “Like, we’re not going to a restaurant, or to the cinema, or anything?”

Hope sighs, his lips turned upwards. “Nope. The Italian-Japanese fusion place will have to wait another day. I mean, we could all go out for New Year’s,” he suggests.

Roman points at Hope with the pen he’s taken from Thomas’s fingers. “Hope, that is an excellent idea. Write it down, Thomjamin.”

After letting out a snort of laughter, Thomas wrangles the pen back from Roman and scribbles a brief sentence, which Virgil guesses is a reminder about the New Year’s thing, in the corner of the page.

“But, if they’re coming over here, don’t you think we need to _do something_?” Virgil asks, moving his hands in two separate circles, as though he’s imitating the world’s gentlest volcanic eruption.

“Uh, yeah,” says Roman. “ _Writing_. How are we supposed to _share_ our _ideas_ if all our ideas suck?”

“Remus,” Virgil says, instead of trying to argue with a Roman stuck in daydreams of creating things, which is a pretty big step away from a Roman who keeps trying to kill himself and-or Thomas. “Remus, can you tell me something?”

With a wet smacking noise, Remus pulls away from the underside of Thomas’s ear, caressing the purple mark left behind that he had definitely re-angled Thomas for in order to show it to Virgil.

“Yeah?” he asks, before his tongue flits out to lick the hickey.

Virgil asks, with just the amount of tension he needs in his voice to stop Thomas from ignoring him, “How messy do you think this room is?”

Remus snorts with laughter. “It’s pretty fucking messy, Ariel! Like, if I had to choose between sitting naked in the trash bin, and sitting naked in here, I’d be pretty torn up as to where I’d wanna go!”

Before Remus can start laughing in more unashamed delight, Virgil schools his expression into something less bewilderedly disgusted. He opens his mouth to speak, when Roman interrupts.

“I called him Ariel, sometimes.”

It’s a soft tone that sounds almost nostalgic, and Thomas’s responding question of “Who?” is just gentle enough to not break the dreamlike drama.

“Patton,” Roman says, in that same tone.

You could hear a pin drop.

“I was just going to tell you to clean your house, Thomas,” states Virgil. “Literally, I was just using Remus’s standards to drive home the point that this place is a mess.”

“I mean, my Patton. The fake one,” Roman continues. “After the spirit from _The Tempest_. He was supposed to do all that I told him to, like I was his Prospero, and he was bound to me. He was just meant as a distraction for me to wrap up the loose ends and kill us. He was a tool to me, and nothing more, so I had to stop giving it a name. I was getting too attached.”

Hope muses, “I remember him, I think. Patton Two. Pattwon.”

“That was one of his dresses, the one you’re wearing now,” Roman replies.

“He had two dresses?” Thomas asks.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” says Roman, like Thomas was stupid for even questioning that. “More than two. They were all pretty similar, and they changed depending on what you remembered from the last time you saw him. It’s not surprising you didn’t notice.”

“Plus, Roman was kind of leading you around by the nose for that whole time,” Virgil adds, with a voice as harsh as stone. “None of us noticed shit back then, and we’re not noticing it now, because this house is a fucking nightmare. Hey, Logan!”

Logan rises up in his Christmas sweater, his arms wrapped around his body as if he’s trying to hug himself. He drops the position as soon as he opens his eyes to see them all. “ _What_? Oh my great DSM, what have you _done_ to this place, Thomas?”

“Hope, how long until Joan and Talyn come around?” Virgil asks, a slight smirk on his lips.

“Um, like, around half four?” he responds. “Hopefully they’ll arrive sooner, though!”

Logan glances at the phone in his pocket. He says, “It’s four o’clock _right now_. We need to start cleaning immediately.”

“Why?” asks Remus.

“Because it’s rude to invite guests to an unclean location,” Logan explains, in a way that could be gentle, if he didn’t sound so clipped. “Not that I’d expect you to know that.”

“Eh, they’ve seen us at worse,” says Roman, writing with Thomas’s hand through the pages of the notebook.

They’d never used it before, because it’s pretty and leather-bound and it cost them an exorbitant amount of money for what is essentially a lot of blank pages stuck together, but Thomas and Roman are already on the last few pages.

Logan raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“It can’t be any worse than…” Roman bares his teeth just enough so Virgil can see how mortifyingly awkward an attempt at a grin can be. “You know, the time you called them over?”

“The last time I-” Logan sputters, then asks, “You mean, the time I called Joan in order to help Thomas survive an overdose? _That_ time I ‘called them over’?

Roman’s expression hasn’t changed, except to seem even more terrified. “Um, er… _Yeah_.”

Logan removes his glasses so he can press his fists over his eyes. “Please, I’m _begging_ you. Clean your room.”

* * *

Okay, so maybe it’s not clean-clean, but, by the time that either Joan or Talyn knocks on the door, presumably with the one who isn’t knocking beside them, the house is cleaner. The junk paper is in with the recyclables, and the impressive range of fruit and empty deodorant cans are in their respective bins, and, hopefully, it’s not too dusty.

A freshly-showered Thomas moves to answer the door, but Hope rushes in and opens it before he can get there.

“You’re Joan!” he beams, then looks down. “And you’re Talyn! You know, for some reason I thought I’d be shorter than you.”

Muffled into his chest, because he’s just pulled the two of them into a hug, Talyn replies, “Thomas, what the fuck? You’ve literally always been taller than me.”

“Hope! Damn it, Hope, you need to ask permission before hugging people,” Thomas puts a hand on Hope’s shoulder. “It’s kind of rude to hug someone without their consent.”

Immediately, Hope tears away. “I’m so sorry! I got really excited because I only fully formed, like, uh, last month!”

“Hope? Hope, chill,” says Joan, holding Hope’s other shoulder and looking him in the eye. “It’s okay. I understand. I mean, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, too.”

Hope’s heart skips several beats in his excitement as he looks at them. “Really?”

“Well, yeah,” they reply. “My best friend called me one day and said that a Side just manifested that represents the fact that he has a future.”

“They cried for, like, an hour,” Talyn adds.

Joan elbows them gently, smiling affectionately. One day, Thomas is going to have a relationship like that! “You cried for two.”

Talyn’s lips thin so that they look like they’re doing an impression of a frog. They hold up a reusable carrier bag and say, “We brought pasta ingredients.”

Thomas invites them both in, and they don’t comment on the remaining mess, so they might not have commented on the mess that was there before, but it’s okay, because Logan said that a cleaner space makes you more productive, or something, and Ethan was really nice after the worst of the food was cleaned up.

Speaking of which, Ethan’s stuck a couple of the sofa cushion covers into the washing machine. It kind of makes sense. Thomas left some juicy apple cores on them, and they might have stained.

“Please excuse the mess,” the aforementioned Ethan smiles flatly. “You see, _someone_ was too concerned with making as many ideas as he could instead of keeping his living space habitable.”

“Making ideas?” Talyn asks.

Thomas slaps the notebook that he was carrying onto the coffee table, while Joan and Talyn take a couple of still-cushioned sofa seats. “Deceit’s just pissy that I’ve been getting along with Roman better for the past week.”

“Roman?” Joan’s tone is weirdly surprised.

Hope asks, before anyone can gloss over that, “Why do you sound so weirded out by that?”

Joan breathes through their teeth for a second. They take their red beanie off, and run a hand through their flattened hair. “Um…”

“Last time we saw Roman, he was being a jerk. I mean, seriously, a total dick,” Talyn says. “I’m not saying that he’s not allowed to be sad, and that his feelings aren’t valid, but he was literally trying to kill Thomas. Or make Thomas kill himself.”

“It’s different now!” Thomas interrupts. “He’s been helping. He wrote this whole thing with me!”

Ethan snorts. “And what have you eaten today?”

Thomas squirms as he moves to sit on the sofa, a little further away from Talyn and Joan, while Logan speaks.

“Since this morning, Thomas has consumed four apples and two clementine oranges,” he recites, “which adds up to about five-hundred and fifty calories in total. The average recommended daily intake for an adult male of Thomas’s height is roughly two-thousand calories.”

Hope just hopes that he’s just imagining the way that Thomas’s eyes glisten, and that the red flush to his cheeks is just because he’s decided that, since apples are the best, he should become one, and this is the first step in the metamorphic process.

“Logan, can you shut up?” he asks acerbically, then turns to smile at his guests.

They definitely can’t tell how false that grin is! Well, maybe they can. Probably.

Yeah, they can tell.

“Sorry. You can look in the notebook, if you want. I’ll, uh, get started. On pasta-making.”

He stands up abruptly, and leaves for the kitchen.

Virgil appears in the stairs.

“They can still see you, you know,” he says. “Also, Talyn’s following you.”

Well, yeah. After a little silent eye-contact-conversation, Talyn’s stood up and followed Thomas into the kitchen, while Joan opens the notebook and starts to read.

“Virgil, hi!” Hope beams, waving from where he’s balancing himself on the sofa arm. “It’s me! Hope!”

Virgil’s face twists like he’s just eaten a lemon, but he’s smiling through it. Hope would very much like to hug him.

“Hey, can I hug you?” he asks, because it’s kind of rude to hug someone without their consent.

Virgil points at himself, so Hope nods, and, when Virgil asks, _“Me?”_ Hope nods some more, and hums in agreement, bouncing up and down a little.

“Sure?” says Virgil, even though it’s more like a question, but it _is_ consent, so Hope launches himself off of the sofa and onto Virgil. It’s pretty good that he always sits on the stairs, because otherwise, Hope’s pretty sure he’d have knocked him down. He sounds in pain, but he laughs while Hope smooshes their faces together.

Both of them are squishy and warm. It’s good. There’s no harsh edges that cut painfully, and Virgil gives really firm cuddles. It’s safe.

In the kitchen, he can hear Talyn and Thomas chatting about nothing in particular, and the swift chopping of knives through peppers and tomatoes. Pages are turned with quiet rustles, and Virgil’s heart beats unsteadily under Hope’s ear.

“You know,” says Roman’s voice, “Hope suggested that all our friends meet up at that Italian-Japanese place and have a meal around New Year’s.”

Joan screams. Virgil jumps to his feet, and Hope rolls down the last few stairs. There’s a clattering sound, and, while Thomas runs through the kitchen door, Talyn launches themself over the little countertop where Hope likes to sit and play ukulele to get to Joan faster.

“What the _fuck_?” they yelp, as Remus turns to look at them.

Maybe baby arms that used to grow from your chest aren’t a normal snack. Either way, there’s a bleeding wound on the Creativities’ chest, and a tiny baby hand hanging out of Remus’s mouth.

“’Sup, Talyn?” he waves.

Then there’s a mess of explanations, and Joan promises Thomas that _yes_ , they watched the video, so they knew what had happened to Roman and Remus. They explained that it was the shock of a physically impossible man (or men) eating a baby arm that caused the reflex of being absolutely fucking terrified enough to scream.

Still, Hope closes his eyes.

* * *

It’s okay. It’s really _okay_ , Joan _swears_.

Not in the normal way, where they can cuss out a shitty person without having to think too hard. It's the 'promising' way. Joan _promises_.

They have dinner, but Thomas keeps fidgeting. Talyn mentions that it’s halfway through December, and his Christmas tree still isn’t up, so, after the three humans have watched an episode of Brooklyn 99 while eating their completed pasta meal, Logan and Joan go into the storage space to retrieve a dusty, plastic tree and a couple of boxes of tinsel and baubles.

Logan quietly sings _Once in Royal David’s City_ , and Joan carefully chooses to not say anything about it. It’s the first time they’ve heard their friend’s singing voice outside of recordings for months, even if it’s only a part of the friend who is actually singing.

The decorating is actually pretty fun. None of them really know how to assemble the tree, so Logan takes over the instruction book and has Ethan and Virgil sort out the pieces before putting them together. Meanwhile, the weird Roman-Remus (Romus? Reman?) amalgamation hangs tinsel over mantels and picture frames, popping his extra half-leg out as he reaches up, like a girl being kissed in a movie.

Joan sings along to the Spotify playlist they have, wiggling their hips and twerking as they try to remember all the words to _Christmas Wrapping_ , just to hear Thomas snort with laughter. Talyn tries to keep a straight face; they know they do. They also _fail_ , because Joan is just too good.

Ethan strings up the lights, even as Thomas stares at him with an unreadable expression. Logan leaves to make drinks, like hot chocolate, if they have it. He mentions that knowing what food Thomas has in the cupboards at any given moment is a gamble, and Joan tries to ignore the way their heart seems to stop for a second at that moment.

Virgil sings _Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas_ , only for Hope to join in harmonising halfway through. Thomas had seemed so happy, Joan hadn’t noticed that the newest Side was gone.

Roman-Remus kisses Joan’s hand, moustache brushing against their knuckles, before bringing them into a slow dance, with both of their hands joined. He smells strange, but not awful. Just the familiar must of someone you’ve fallen asleep with multiple times. A quick glance to their left shows Joan that Talyn has been swept into a waltz on top of Ethan’s toes, so they don’t have to worry about missing a step and falling.

When they leave a couple of hours later, with plans to eat out on Christmas Eve-Eve, Joan doesn’t feel nervous about leaving Thomas alone with himself.

Not at all.


End file.
